Degree Resources

Promoting Your Degrees

A PPA degree can be one more tool for telling the world—and all those potential clients—why they should call you, rather than the competitor down the street. So how do you do that?

How to Explain What Your Degree Means to Clients

If you want a client to truly understand the significance of your degree, you have to show them. Explain how it benefits them, just as you do with every service and qualification you offer.

Focus on how you earned each degree—what actions you took and why they make you a better photographer:

Master of Photography – Show your clients how this degree recognizes your superior photographic quality. Explain to them your success in photographic competition. Clients may appreciate the fact that "their" photographer's art has been so highly recognized by a group like PPA.

Master Artist (formerly known as the Master of Electronic Imaging Degree) – Show your clients how this degree recognizes your superior skills with artistic image manipulations like enhancements, composites and computer graphics. Many photographers don't possess this kind of skillset. Brag a bit! Explain about your success with photographic competition. This can help you promote certain products and services too.

Photographic Craftsman – This degree is one of the highest recognitions for speaking, writing and/or mentoring in photography. You must be pretty darn good if other photographers want to learn from you!

Add the degree after your name on your website, marketing materials, studio door, etc. Adding your degree to your name (like a doctor does) can help increase awareness. Clients might not understand what it means right away, but they will recognize that it means something. It opens the door for them to ask you questions.

Send a press release. After you receive your degree, announce it to your community by sending a press release. PPA will supply you with a simple press release about your degree, but be sure to add in your own style. It should not be about only you, but also how earning the degree has increased your skills and improved the quality of service customers can expect. This will actually help the release get published.

Send an email or postcard to existing and targeted customers. Let them know about your achievement—it provides a nice way to introduce yourself or stay in touch. You could even commemorate the occasion by offering a special group session or open house. If you earned a Master of Photography or Master Artist degree, maybe you could share watermarked images of the photographs that helped earn you the recognition.

Share your experience. Whether you're speaking at an event or chatting with fellow photographers, take a little time to tell your story. How has the journey of earning the degree helped get you to where you are? You never know who will pass the information on to potential clients… and it certainly doesn't hurt to establish yourself as an expert in your field. The more your name is out there, the more likely it is that clients will learn about you.